Doctor's Bathing Suit
by sippingkoolaid
Summary: Okay, so, I really like the Doctor and Amy's relationship and I wanted to develop their affection more. Essentially, the Doctor and Amy stop by paradise and end up confessing feelings for each other.  I will take suggestions for add/ons or anything else..


**Okay, so, I really like the Doctor and Amy's relationship and I wanted to develop their affection more and dig into that aspect of it. This references events in "Vincent and the Doctor", "Amy's Choice" and the kiss in "Flesh and Stone", just so you know. Pretend that there is still no Rory and the Doctor keeps taking Amy on these little vacations to keep her busy and happy. Pretend that the Doctor feels terribly about Rory's disappearance, and pretend that he has harbored affectionate feelings for Amy Pond for some time now (while Miss Pond wants to get in his pants). **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or its characters, but I wish I did. **

Doctor's POV, 1st Installation

"You know, Doctor, I love 54th century abstract art, especially when it's in a museum made entirely of glass, but do you think we could maybe go somewhere sunny now? A beach, perhaps?" said Amy Pond, "I wouldn't mind having you in your bathing costume to look at."

The Doctor smiled back at her, appreciating her humor, but it still pained him to hear her talk with such innuendo toward him. If Rory were still with them, he would certainly object—not that it would have made Amy stop, but still—without Rory, her not-so-subtle hints dropped every now and then and accumulated around the TARDIS, building a peculiar tension between them. It was unfair, really—the Doctor knew part of the reason she was doing this was because they had time to and she was bored.

He knew he should tell her soon, before she somehow found out on her own about Rory and what had happened. Moreover, there was no Rory in her mind and therefore there was no reason for her to be discouraged from shameless flirtation with the Doctor—and she wasn't. The Doctor would good-naturedly accept it but not necessarily reciprocate it, and that was about all he could handle at this point. He did love Amy, and he was certainly aware of how appealing she was, but in his mind, their relationship was almost beyond these superficial flirtations. So, he would refrain time and time again from returning a suggestive remark or touch, and he knew it was for the best. On top of all that, even, was the fact that she had forgotten her fiancée, for which the Doctor blamed himself.

The Doctor even had a plan for when he would tell her all about Rory Williams and how she had loved him: he would sit her down; he would _make_ her remember that boy from her childhood that used to dress up like her raggedy doctor. He would _make_ her remember that young man who took care of her when she was sick like only a nurse could. He would…

"Doctor," Amy interrupted his thinking. "Beach. Sun. Bathing costume. No bow tie. What do you say?" He smiled widely at her, saying with pseudo-animation, "I have just the place. You'll like it there, I think." With that, he began his TARDIS-flying ritual which always included at least three laps around the console for him and ten or so stumbles from Amy while she attempted to keep her balance.

The TARDIS landed with a thud and the Doctor checked his coordinates. They were spot on, exactly where he had planned for them to be. "All right, Pond, grab a towel and prepare to be amazed," he said, parking the TARDIS. The pair went into their respective rooms to change and gather their things. Amy had forced the Doctor to swear that he would be hasty, because she knew that the Doctor's Time Lord brain had a tendency to get distracted rather easily.

The Doctor had to search in his room for a while to find it, but finally found his swimming costume. It was sort of old; he had gotten it a few years back in early 20th century London. Of course, he had bought it for his fifth body—his eleventh body was much leaner and lankier than that. The two piece striped bodysuit now hung on him in places where it had flattered him before.

The Doctor rounded the corner, and Amy fell into stitches at the sight of his bathing costume. "That's ancient!" she managed to say between laughs. The Doctor simply frowned at her. "You know, you would probably be hung by your ankles in half of the planets in this galaxy for how revealing your bathing costume is," huffed the Doctor. Amy rolled her eyes. "Right. Well, you should at least take the top off once we get out there, at least then you'll look somewhat normal."

The Doctor dismissed her with a shake of his head and gestured toward the door. "Go on, I think you'll quite like where we are today." He smiled in anticipation of her reaction.

Amy opened the door sucked in a breath. She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the brightness outside. Amy turned, and looked at him for a moment. "This truly is paradise," she said breathily, awe coloring her tone. "It looks like an Earth beach, but a thousand times more beautiful. And look," she said, pointing to the clear blue sky, "there's even a big sun, here, too, just like home." It was breathtakingly beautiful, and the Doctor had only expected it to be as such. The way the perfect azure waves blended with the sky at the horizon was mesmerizing; it was as though they were surrounded in a globe of the most serene blue in existence.

The two of them stood there a while longer, taking it all in, before Amy asked, "Where are we, Doctor?" The Doctor, still squinting into the horizon, answered, "Mnemba Island, roughly three and a half kilometres off the coast of Zanzibar and about 75 kilometres from the coast of Tanzania, East Africa. We're on Earth, Pond."

It was unlike Amy to gush excessively, but the girl surprised the Doctor, saying, "I never knew a place like this ever existed. Is this real? Is this natural? Are we in some, like, simulated paradise place millions of years in the future?" The Doctor smiled at her wonder and shook his head. "Nope. This is 100% natural. We're on one of the most tranquil, secluded beaches in the universe, in all of space and time. And to think, this paradise exists fewer than 200 kilometres from one of the most violent countries in the world at this time."

Amy cocked her head to the side. "_When_ are we, Doctor?" she asked, clearly puzzled by his assertation. "Oh, sometime in late 2001, before this place gets all developed with hotels and whatnot. There's a war for diamonds going on just east of this island. Messy stuff. People are fighting over a certain type of rock. Terribly human, I'm afraid."

Amy ignored the latter part of his last statement, and repeated thoughtfully, "2001. I'm eleven years old right now." The Doctor winced internally again, thinking of how terribly lonely her childhood memories must be without Rory in them.

Amy suddenly changed the topic: "Well, Doctor, I don't think I've ever seen water quite so appealing as this. Care to join me for a swim?" The ginger girl quickly stepped out of her short fluttery skirt and pulled her blouse off over her head to reveal a skin-bearing seafoam green bikini. Without waiting for the Doctor, she splashed into the clear water and settled herself on a perfectly white sandbank where sitting would allow the water to only come up to her chest. The Doctor stayed where the water met the sand, watching her. She called out to him, giddily enjoying the water. The Doctor decided to shimmy out of the top of his bathing costume per Amy's suggestion. He folded the top neatly on the sand beyond the reach of the water, and headed into the ocean.

He reached Amy and settled into the water, feeling the sunlight soaking into the skin on his shoulders and cheekbones. "Pond, you didn't remember to apply sunscreen, did you? Or at least give yourself a sonic UV shield before we left?" Amy shook her head. "It's all right, I can do to get a little sun anyway," she said dismissively. The Doctor noticed that her face already looked flushed, and could have sworn her chest was splattered with a few more freckles than when they had arrived. His eyes traveled down her body, and even through the light-bending of the water, he could tell that her beauty transcended human standards: the Doctor had witnessed more than a few aliens of the male persuasion (or something like it) notice how attractive she was.

"Look at you," she said teasingly, giggling while she gently touched his chest. "I could handle you with your shirt off more often." The Doctor smiled but took her hand and placed it back in the water next to her own body. The corners of Amy's mouth pulled down slightly. An awkwardly silent moment passed before she asked, "Doctor, what's wrong?" The Doctor smiled widely at her, mustering up as much enthusiasm as possible to answer her. "Whatever do you mean, Amy? I'm as fit as fiddle."

"Well, for starters, you usually don't mind this"—Amy touched his chest again, where her fingers were only a second ago—"that much at all. Lately, though, it seems like you've been almost scared to touch me or to upset me or to annoy me. You keep taking me to all these marvelous places—we haven't saved any planets lately. You must be awfully bored, and I have a feeling that it's all to appease me. I don't need appeasing, Doctor, if that's what you think. I was perfectly happy being dragged around all of time and space, saving the universe with you. But, don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy now, too." Amy took his hand and gave it a quick squeeze underwater.

_Oh, Amelia Jessica Pond, you amazing, perceptive girl, you_, thought the Doctor. "I'm glad you're happy, Amy, I am. But tell me one thing: Right now, in this very moment, do you have this crushing weight upon you? Like you have forgotten something tremendously terrible yet important and you can't remember what it is?" Amy's red eyebrows pressed down over her eyes. She paused and allowed herself to think. "I can't say that I do…Why? Should I?" asked Amy, confused.

The Doctor wiped a tear from under her eye. "No, but you're crying, Pond, and you don't know why. Doesn't that strike you as strange?" Amy let out a small gasp and reached up to her eyes to verify what the Doctor had said. "That's twice that's happened to me! Remember, with Vincent? He said that I had a grieving heart. What's wrong with me, Doctor?" _Tell her_, thought the Doctor to himself. _Tell her now, it's the perfect opportunity_. "Try to remember, Amy. You can't tell me you haven't had strange dreams lately; I've heard you rustling around at night. Take that feeling that you are missing something and harness it and focus on it."

The redhead furrowed her brow again. The waves washed over them rhythmically, and it was the only sound either of them heard for a while. "Maybe I don't want to remember," Amy said suddenly, "if it was so terrible, maybe it's best I don't remember. Ignorance is bliss, after all." The Doctor sighed internally. He especially couldn't tell her now that she had said this. "I'm sorry if some part of you is sad," he offered. It was the only condolence he could think to give, under the circumstances.

Amy's POV, 2nd Installation

"Enough of that," Amy said. "Let's enjoy our time here. We're in—what did you call it?—one of the most secluded, tranquil beaches in the universe." Amy repositioned herself so that her body was flush against the Doctor's in the water—instead of mirroring her, he was now spooning her. Amy was completely comfortable with the proximity, in fact, she rather liked it—as a human, she needed physical affection sometimes.

Amy let the Doctor rattle on about the special types of flora in the small tropical forest on the island; she would interject cheekily here and there when the Doctor would tell her about a spider that was nearly two decimetres in length or about the evolutionary development of the palm tree. It was different than his usual chatter, though—this time, it wasn't alien worlds that he was talking about, but her own planet, her own planet at a time when she was alive in it, even. And what they were doing was different from what they usually did, too: they weren't fighting against an evil alien race or trying to save a planet or anything, but they were just sitting, talking, and enjoying each other's company. The Doctor, in sitting in the water with her, struck Amy as being particularly human on this day, even though he was still alien; she could feel his two hearts beating on her back and she knew that his body's proximity to hers would not illicit the same effect on him as it would to any other male's body that was pressed up against a woman's. But, Amy Pond knew that he did care for her, and she knew he wouldn't find their proximity uncomfortable, either.

They stayed like that for an hour or so, before the Doctor began getting too excited to sit still. They decided to head back into the TARDIS to sonic over themselves a UV shield and a sonic frequency that would repel any disease-carrying mosquitoes and then set out to explore the mini jungle. From the Doctor's estimation—which, due to his cleverness about all things space and time, was actually more of a legitimate calculation—the island was scarcely more than 500 metres tip-to-tip lengthwise. The jungle, therefore, was not too dense to be intimidating to Amy, yet was dense enough to ensure there was enough biological diversity to keep the Doctor happily busy the rest of the day while sonic-ing things left and right and rattling off statistics and facts about nearly every flower and insect.

Once it started to fall dark, the pair agreed to retire to the beach, near where the TARDIS was parked. They sat on the beach, and the Doctor refused to light a fire because it would emit too much carbon dioxide. "Besides," said the Doctor, "look up at the sky. Who needs fire when you have this kind of light?" And it was true: the moon was full and bright, and what seemed to Amy an innumerable number of stars was burning brightly. The sky, much like it was earlier in the day, was doubled in the water; the overall effect was almost equivalent to that of daylight.

"There's a reason why I chose today, Amy," started the Doctor, "and I don't want you to miss it. Keep your eyes on the sky, Pond." The Doctor wouldn't tell her what was going to happen, but she could see that he was squirming with excitement over it.

Within three minutes of his warning to watch the sky, Amy saw a single streak blaze across the sky brilliantly then die out toward the horizon. "Ha!" the Doctor shouted. "What did I tell you?" Well, it certainly was beautiful, but did the Doctor really expect her to be impressed by a shooting star? "Doc—" before Amy could finish the beginning of her objection, the whole sky was filled with the burning streaks. _Like cosmic fireworks_, she had thought to herself.

The fleetingness of it saddened her; it was one of those moments that she knew she must force herself to embrace because it would be over quickly; like she had thought it might, the meteor shower ended as suddenly as it had began.

Amy Pond finally took her eyes off the sky. The Doctor was beaming at her with that _look_. It was that look which said, _See? This is my universe, be impressed by it._ Amy challenged the Doctor's look with a cock of her eyebrow. "Oi, Doctor, you got something to say?" He grinned devilishly and stepped forward so that he was inches from her face. "You thought I had brought you across all of time and space for a single lump of rock falling to the face of the Earth," he breathed. It wasn't a question; the Time Lord was able to read her thoughts without trying. He continued, "However, Amy Pond, I think it may interest you to know that this will be the Earth's most bountiful meteor shower for at least 270 years. You can submit your thanks via written letter or spoken word, I accept both."

Amy fixed a smirk on her face and leaned in so that their faces were even closer. "Is that so?" She made the mistake of looking at the Doctor's lips as she was attempting to sass him, so her distraction made the question sound more high pitched and innocent and certainly less sarcastic than she had intended.

Doctor's POV, 3rd Installation

The Doctor could literally _smell_ the adrenaline that rushed through Amy's body when she leaned in to give him her comeback (which turned out to be inferior to his previous witticism, in his opinion). He knew what was coming. He knew it even before he actually _tasted_ the adrenaline on her mouth when she had touched her lips to his, and he knew it before she had anchored a slightly clammy hand on the back of his neck to pull him in. And yet, he did not attempt to stop it at all.

Even the sharp facets of his Time Lord brain dulled slightly when Amy Pond kissed him. For a nanosecond, the transcript of his thoughts consisted only of her before it digressed: _Amy Pond is pressing her mouth to mine in an affectionate manner. She smells of sea salt and sweet sweat. The tips of her long nails are grazing across the nape of my neck and it would give any human chills, because that's one of those places on their bodies that is technically erogenous. "Erogenous", adjective, a word which describes an area that can be stimulated for physical pleasure. Greek etymology; derived from the name for the mythical Greek god Eros, the god of love, life instinct and desire. _Only after the Doctor was finished thinking these things did it occur to him that he might end this kiss with Amy. He decided against it almost too quickly; after all, he was going to give her what she wanted, right? It was all part of his own kind of prescription therapy for her.

While the Doctor's neurons were firing away, Amy Pond, realizing that the Doctor wasn't going to end this one, continued the kiss. Amy twisted her fingers through his hair and tentatively traced his lips with her tongue, inviting him to open his mouth. He obliged her, and simultaneously took control of the process. The Doctor allowed himself to firmly take her face in his hands and use his tongue to engage hers. As soon as he did this, the redhead removed herself from him. _Now I've done it, _thought the Doctor. _I've taken it too far._ His ears immediately turned red as Amy gaped at him.

"What was that?" asked Amy, an almost defensive tone to her voice. The Doctor adjusted the lapels of his tweed jacket. "That was a kiss. It's what you wanted, wasn't it, a kiss? It should be out of your system now; humans tend to need some type of release from time to time, don't they?" Amy's eyes were wide as she stared at the Doctor. He cleared his throat and looked at his feet to distract himself from her gaze. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no," the words spilled from Amy's mouth quickly. She put her hand over her mouth like she would have if she were shocked.

"Doctor, I just wanted a snog. That was not a snog, that was a _kiss_! W-what…What was that? Before, you didn't even let me…and that was real," Amy's face was serious and her words fast and hot and accusatory.

"What do you want me to say?" asked the Doctor with his brow furrowed. "Don't tell me you didn't feel it, too. That wasn't just fooling around," said Amy in that same accusatory tone. The Doctor sighed, closing his eyes shut tightly. _She didn't know,_ he thought. _She didn't know that I felt that way. That kiss was inappropriately sensual for what Miss Amy Pond wanted. How was I supposed to know? I'm expected to give a kiss, I deliver!_

He took her by the shoulders and trained his unfaltering gaze right into her large, golden green eyes. "Look, Amy…you're humanly hormonal. You needed a kiss, you needed to feel wanted. I obliged you, and that's all. All right?" Even to his own ears, the Doctor could tell that the words too persuasive.

"Well, it's safe to say you went above and beyond your call of duty, then…" said Amy. It was obvious to the Doctor from the way she said it that she was heavily insinuating something. He could still feel the hotness of his own ears and decided to let it be. He needed to recover his ego and Amy Pond needed to sort out her new-found information.

The Doctor suddenly got up from his place on the beach and headed toward the jungle. Amy didn't say anything. The Doctor needed something to keep himself busy; he was a Time Lord, after all, and he was unaccustomed to unmanipulated time. He had always thought that time in and of itself was quite boring, moving slowly and in its own order; that's why, naturally, he had chosen a life of time travelling.

The Doctor found himself a rock with a sharp, broken-off edge and some soft bark that had already fallen off one of the trees in the small jungle. He figured that keeping his hands busy whittling something would allow him to pass the time more easily until he and Amy were ready to go. They should certainly spend the night in the TARDIS if they were going to stay the night; the Doctor was fairly sure that nothing terribly large or possibly dangerous lived on the island, but it was better to not take the chances.

What kept his hands busy, however, did not keep his mind as busy. The Doctor kept thinking back to what had taken place with Amy—_why did I have to kiss her back? I shouldn't have. I should have just pushed her away like I had before, and then this wouldn't be unchartered territory. She wouldn't have figured out my feelings for her, and I wouldn't have betrayed non-existent Rory. _

The Doctor admitted to himself that he had absolutely no clue what to say or do about the situation, and that frustrated him. Understanding the whole of time and space wasn't a problem for the Doctor's mind, but getting entangled with a woman left him tripping over his own shoelaces. Playing the scene in his head over again, the Doctor continued whittling away at the beach wood with fervor.

The Doctor was so engrossed in his work that he didn't notice when Amy Pond was standing over his shoulder, watching him work. She betrayed herself with a dainty sneeze, and the Doctor started at the disruption to his thoughts.

"Oh, Amy, hello," he said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your work," said Amy quietly, eyeballing his small figurine. "Are you ready to go into the TARDIS? It's beautiful out here, really, but I imagine sleeping in the sand would be rather uncomfortable." The Doctor nodded his head vigorously, pocketing the small wooden shape which was meant to look like a palm tree. He bounced up and strode with her over to the TARDIS in silence. As they were walking, he noticed that Amy's face was undeniably sunburnt, as well as her chest and arms and legs.

The Doctor locked the TARDIS behind them. Amy was leaning against the console, the very picture of ease. "Doctor, would you have any aloe?" she asked, pressing her palm against her neck to feel the heat of her sun burn. He thought for a moment. "Come along, Pond," said the Doctor. He led her into the main hallway of the TARDIS and counted the doors down. "Let's see…health products should be in here." The Doctor stopped in front of the fifth door on the right. It appeared small, but the Doctor himself was able fit his whole body inside to find what he was looking for. After some noisy sorting, the Doctor emerged triumphantly with a bottle of green goo. "This is it, I think. Or it might be antifungal gel, but I'm pretty sure this is aloe." He sniffed the contents and deliberated. "Yeah, probably aloe."

Amy Pond raised her eyebrow and snatched the bottle from him. "All right. You'd better hope this is aloe." She immediately began to apply it to her neck and chest, which were bright red. She continued to apply it to her legs and arms. Amy wandered down the hallway to the door of her room and tossed her clothes in as she stripped down to her bathing costume for the second time that day. The Doctor shuffled to his room as soon as he saw she was undressing.

It wasn't long before the Doctor heard Amy call his name. He paced quickly out of his room and down the hallway to her room. The Doctor knocked on the door loudly. "Amy, Amy? Are you all right?" She opened the door enough to stick her head out. "I'm fine, Doctor, shush. I just need a favor. I know you probably won't want to"—at this point, the redhead rolled her eyes—"but I really need some aloe on my back, and I can't very well reach it on my own. Please?"

The Doctor groaned internally. "Erm, sure, I guess," he conceded. Amy opened her door wider and he saw that she was still in her bathing costume. "Come in," she said, sending him a little bit of a daring look. Looking anywhere but at her, the Doctor awkwardly passed in front of her to enter into her room. He did like the way she kept it; it wasn't terribly messy yet not inhumanly neat, either, and it had a homey feel. Her room was decorated simply, with utilitarian furniture and soft white linens on her bed, which had a pile of books acting as a nightstand to its left.

Amy tied her hair in a high ponytail. "Okay, then, here," she said, handing him the bottle of aloe. Amy Pond then turned around and began to untie the doings of the top of her bathing costume, it dropped to the floor. She crossed her arms over her chest to cover herself. Blood rushed to the Doctor's ears again. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen naked bodies before—it's just that he hadn't seen _Amelia Jessica Pond's_ naked body before. Well, actually, he had once before, but it was wholly an accident—she had left the door to the bathroom ajar and he had quickly closed it for her when he realized that she was naked.

"Go on, then, Doctor," she urged, bouncing up and down, "My skin is on fire. Please." The Doctor squeezed the stuff into his hands and tentatively began to massage it into her upper shoulders. Her skin was tomato red, and she winced a little when he touched her. "Sorry," he whispered, barely able to get the word out. The Doctor continued to rub the green aloe into her shoulders until they were shiny with the stuff; he squeezed more into his hands, and, after a moment's pause, let his hands massage it into the skin of her lower back, just above the bottoms of the swim costume she was wearing. As the Doctor's hands covered the contours of her back, he tried to force himself to make the situation less sensual than it already was by not allowing his hands to linger.

The Doctor cleared his throat when her whole back had been covered. "All right, I think you're finished," he said quietly, fixing his eyes on the chair in the corner of the room while wiping his hands on his trousers. "Thank you, Doctor," said Amy, turning around with her arms still crossed over her chest. The Doctor stared intently at the chair as Amy stepped closer to him.

It was that smell again: the smell of human adrenaline. _Twice in one day_, he'd thought. As he predicted, Amy Pond kissed him again, allowing her arms to uncross so her hands could grasp the Doctor's face for the second time that day. She pressed her naked chest to the Doctor's. The Doctor froze and pulled away slightly from her lips—it wasn't a surprised action, but rather what one would do to get air during a kiss. Instead, he asked her softly, "What are you doing, Amy? You have no idea how confused I am."

"Doctor, please do me a favor and just go with it," she leaned in to continue kissing him, but he wouldn't let her. "No. Amy, in all honesty, this is unfair to me. I…I actually…love you…and you just want, I don't even know, to kiss me?" He choked on the words as they came up, but they were propelled by how indignant he felt. Topless Amy stood there with her mouth hung open slightly and her golden green eyes trained right on his.

"Did you just say…?" The words left Amy's mouth with a twinge of what the Doctor recognized as disbelief. He fixed his eyes on the chair in the corner again, trying to escape her gaze and the sight of her now uncovered nakedness. "Yes, I did. I have deep affection for you, Amy, but you are just so, so…_human._ Look at yourself, half naked"—the Doctor paced over to the closet and grabbed a large jumper for her to put on—"and trying to come onto me for the second time today. What is it that you want, Amy? A snog? Because you can get your cheap thrills elsewhere."

Amy pulled the jumper on over her head violently. "Is that why you refuse to touch me, then? You think I just want…you?" said Amy angrily, gesturing to his entire body. "You must know better than that, Doctor. Look into my mind. Look, and you'll see."

There was a tensely quiet moment while both of them breathed heavily. She took his hand and pressed it to her own cheek. He saw dreamy images of himself, his profile; he saw and felt the warm pinkness of her feelings for him, underscored by traces of passionate reds and comfortable blues. He relived the kiss from earlier today and saw her thoughts while she was sitting on the beach; he saw a montage of different times when he had smiled at her, or held her hand in his own. This autoscopy was strange for him; usually when he read people's minds, it was regarding their own experiences with others, not himself. The Doctor broke the connection when he had seen enough to get the idea.

"I swear, Pond, you can drive me up a wall sometimes," he commented with a slight smirk. She beamed at him. He embraced her tightly, planting a soft kiss on her forehead. Somehow—his Time Lord brain managed to miss exactly when it happened—Amy transitioned their embrace into a kiss. It was the third kiss for the pair today; this time, however, they were both on the same page.

The Doctor used his tongue to outline her lips—a move she'd used on him earlier in the day—and let his hands slide under her jumper. He barely touched her back with his fingertips (after all, it was still sticky from the aloe), but it was enough to make him want to touch more of her. Amy guided them as a unit toward her bed, where she then allowed the Doctor to lower himself over her, all the time keeping their bodies strictly connected by their lips.

And then, Rory's voice just kind of popped into his head. He abruptly stopped kissing Amy. "What's wrong?" she asked breathlessly, her lips already swollen. Her disheveled hair and flushed cheeks and swollen lips only made her look more appealing to the Doctor's eyes, but he couldn't get Rory's voice out of his head—he was remembering how Rory had wanted to keep Amy's engagement ring safe in the TARDIS while they adventured.

"I'm sorry, but we should stop before this gets out of hand," said the Doctor politely. He sat up vertically on the bed. Amy furrowed her brow slightly. "I'll ask again, Doctor, what's wrong?" He ran a hand through his hair anxiously. _I should tell her, I should tell her, I should tell her. I could make her remember him._

"It would just make it a lot more difficult," he whispered, planting a kiss on her hand. "Let this be a good memory, okay, Amy? We can just carry about travelling and living our lives and this can just be a happy memory of a good day. You'll know that I love you and that I would do anything for you, and that would be enough." At the moment he began to push her away, sadness overwhelmed the Time Lord.

"But, Doctor, we just—I love you. You love me. All is well, and there's no reason why we can't have a million memories like this one," Amy's voice became pleading as she said that last bit. The Doctor remembered how pleading she had been with him when she was convinced Rory was dead in the dreamworld his subconscious had created; even then, Rory's death was his own fault (or at least that of his subconscious).

He smiled at her sadly. "You're so fragile, Amelia Jessica Pond. One day, you're going to grow up and leave this place and realize what's good for you—they always do. If we make those memories together now, that day will be that much more painful for me. I'm suspended in time, Pond, I keep going. You humans, it's 100 years or less and you're gone. It makes me sad that such terribly wonderful beings like you can't live longer, but there it is. Life is just a quirk of cellular function; it's nature's way of keeping meat fresh. It's so fragile, Amy. That day will come when you will leave this box and decide that you want to use your time for something better than running about with me in intergalactic space. You may not think so now, but that day will come. So, let this be a fond memory, Amy. Let the way my touch makes you feel linger in the pit of your stomach; know that I feel the same. Realize that even though you may drive me mad, I have the deepest affection for you. I will do anything to keep you safe and make you happy, Amelia."

Amy watched wordlessly as the Doctor reached into his pocket and pressed his whittled palm tree into her hand, kissed her forehead, and promptly left the room.

**Thoughts? Continue? End? Tweak?**


End file.
